1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print system and print control method that is provided with a printing apparatus and a post-processing apparatus (or “finisher”) and that is capable of executing an in-line job using the printing apparatus and the post-processing apparatus and an off-line job, which includes post-processing by the post-processing apparatus but does not include print processing by the printing apparatus, and a printing apparatus and program thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a POD (print on demand) print system has been proposed (US Patent Publication No. 2004-0190057) that takes advantage of an electrophotographic printing apparatus and an inkjet printing apparatus in competition with a printing technology that uses a conventional printing plate. With such POD print system, offset plate making processes and other complicated tasks in conventional print system become unnecessary.
However, in assuming the practical use of products of such POD print system, there are still areas that remain to be investigated. For example, in conventional print system, there is no configuration for enabling use of post-processing by an inline post-processing apparatus connected to a printer (a post-processing apparatus for which a transport path for paper between the printer and the post-processing apparatus is physically connected) without accompanying printing by the printer. Accordingly, it is assumed that a print system is called for that enables use of post-processing by the post-processing apparatus connected to the printer without accompanying printing by the printer.
When attempting to enable an offline job, in which post-processing by the post-processing apparatus connected to the printer is carried out without accompanying print processing by the printer, to be executed in this print system, the following problems as indicated by (1) and (2) below are anticipated.
(1) In a case where a job whose processing is interrupted is an offline job, trouble is anticipated in that the processing of other jobs will be delayed. For example, consider a case where a problem has occurred during execution of an offline job in which only post-processing is carried out. In such case, if it is desired to execute another print job having only print processing without executing post-processing, there is a possibility that the print job can be executed regardless of the problem. Accordingly, in such case, it will be desired to execute the print job regardless of whether or not the cause of the problem in the offline job has been cleared.
(2) In a case where a post-processing job whose processing is interrupted is an offline job, trouble is anticipated to occur when the post-processing job is re-executed. For example, consider a post-processing offline job in which one set (copy) of printed materials (printed sheet) constituted by 10 sheets is stapled and five sets (copies) are produced. At this time, if the offline job is interrupted for some reason during feeding of a 25th sheet of paper, bundles of two sets of stapled sheets of paper and five sheets of paper that have been fed and stacked for stapling will be present inside the print system, and 25 sheets of paper not yet fed will be present in the sheet feeding trays. In order to restart the stapling process in this state, it is necessary to return the five sheets that have been stacked prior to stapling to the sheet feeding trays of the print system, then reset the stapling process settings to match conditions such as the number of these sheets and then to restart the stapling process. Such operations are extremely troublesome, and in a case where there are many sheets or sets of paper, or where the settings are complicated, it can be easily envisioned that appropriately carrying out the settings for re-execution will be extremely difficult.